Title: Ballads

Continuity: Movie-verse/7.4.7

Pairings: OptimusxElita; further pairings will be introduced later.

Warnings: some graphic imagery; some graphic violence; some strong language;

Summery: Love is a battlefield, as the song goes, and life is seldom fair. Optimus, Elita, and all the Cybertronians on Earth know this well, and their ballads are to be sung.


Author's Notes:

A new story that grew out of my original Femme Invasion idea, but this time around it's much darker and more violent. There will be very little humor and some of the subject material may be for more mature audiences. This is rated T for a reason. I strongly advise that if you don't feel comfortable with strong language or graphic images, then don't read this. Even if you are okay, I'd strongly advise you not to read before dinner.

However, this is a romance. The bulk of the story will deal with emotions, so you don't really have to worry too much about the bad, but I feel better warning you before hand.

If you've got a strong stomach and a romantic soul, enjoy.


Chapter 1: Dirge for the Past

Dirge - funeral hymn; song of mourning or lament, especially about death or intended for a funeral.


The morning was bright and clear. It was not unusual for the southern part of Louisiana. The bayou was filled with its regular animal sounds and the peace of nature was untouched. Serena looked out her bedroom window with a small smile. Her mother loved days like this; days with the promise of so much more.

Serena glanced over at the picture on the wall. A tall, dark skinned woman smiled out from behind a rosebush, a twinkle in her blue eyes and a dimple in her cheek. Serena felt tears begin to start. "Why?" she whispered. "Why did I have to live?"

As the sobs rose in her throat, Serena touched the hairline scar on her face. It was thin but red and angry looking. The mark ran from her hairline to the corner of her eye to her jaw, a nasty reminder of where the doctors had to sew part of the skin of her face back to the rest.

Serena glanced down to the dishes she was doing. She shook her head. "Stop it. You have survivors guilt and that's it." Tears welled up. "Stop it."

It had been going on for about six months that Serena had been feeling this way. She hated that it happened but she couldn't seem to help it. She'd been talking to a therapist, but she couldn't seem to make herself feel better. It was then that she felt at her worst that her life changed forever.

A sonic boom rung out over her head. At first Serena thought it was only a jet from the nearby Air Force base, but something about the sound was different. It sounded bigger. Curiosity pushed her to glance out the window. At first she thought it was just the tears that were blurring her sight, but as she wiped them away, she realized what she was seeing was real. A meteor was falling from the sky!

She opened up the window of her small house on the edge of the bayou to lean out and watch it descend. A loud boom announced it's meeting with the crust of the Earth. Serena spent a moment in contemplation before a rudimentary plan began to form. She hurriedly dressed and jogged out of the house. Her curiosity was piqued. She was about to board her small boat when a large wave appeared in the distance.

"Oh crap!" she cried before running back into the house. The meteor must have displaced quite a bit of water. However, she needn't have worried. The wave was nothing like a hurricane's storm surge so it merely smashed into the wooden dock and caused a couple of the boards to crack. The water didn't reach her house, but after most of the water receded, her backyard was covered in debris and one very disoriented alligator.

"Now that," Serena said as she watched the alligator make its way back to the waters of the swamp, "Is something you don't see everyday."

She waited a few more minutes to be absolutely sure that alligator was gone before she picked her way through the myriad branches and detritus back to her boat. It was turned upside down on the dock, but otherwise was in okay condition. It was a ten footer that had served her well in the past as a fishing boat. She carefully flipped it over and set it gently into the water.

She pushed off of the dock and began to journey to where she had calculated the thing fell. It couldn't be too far; the tidal wave had been small but sizeable. She rowed and surveyed the damage. Along the waterway trees had been knocked down and she could see more wild life staggering about. She kept a watch out for the meaner denizens of the bayou, but none announced themselves.

She rowed on for about twenty minutes before she came to the scene of impact. The crater was small, and half on a small island. Some of the islands of the bayou weren't completely firm, and this one looked like one of those. Inside the crater was the meteorite, but Serene thought something was wrong. The rock didn't look like rock and it wasn't burned and scorched by its entry into Earth's atmosphere. Before her very eyes, the meteorite offered up its mystery. The surface began to writhe and undulate and Serena bit back a yelp of surprise. Parts were rearranging and aligning into a bipedal shape that had to be at least thirty feet tall. Two glowing eyes of the truest blue stared down at her.

Serena felt adrenaline pump throughout her body and began to shake. However, she couldn't move for anything. She was panicking. The thing in front of her cocked its monstrous head and leaned down. Serena cried out as it reached for and grabbed her. She screamed in fright when it lifted her up into the air, but it held her close in what she guessed was an attempt to comfort her. She heard a strange hiss not unlike static over a radio coming from what looked like the thing's mouth.

When she finally stopped the creature pulled her away from its chest a little. Now that she was panicking a little less, Serena noticed that the creature was faintly human in appearance. It had four distinct limbs and its hands had four fingers and a thumb. Its face sported a mouth made of moveable slabs of metal and its eyes had shutters that opened up vertically and horizontally. There was no nose really, but there was a conglomeration of metal slabs that would be the equivalent of a pert little nose on a human.

"Calm down honey." it said in a low, feminine voice. Serena marveled at this. Not only had it spoken flawless English, but also the sound of the voice was amazing. It was low for a woman and smoky, almost like a bedroom voice but without the human sexuality in the tone. Instead, it was infinitely soothing and gentle, with a hint that it could be raised in an instant to a matronly voice fit for a battlefield.

Serena still couldn't speak, but the creature didn't seem to find that disturbing. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm pledged to protect those like you."

"Those like me?" Serena couldn't help but ask.

"Those that can't defend themselves." the creature said with a hint of amusement. Serena decided not to comment on that.

The creature cocked her head to the other side and her shutters crinkled her eyes to communicate a smile. "What is your name?" it asked.

"I . . . I'm Serena. Serena Marshall."

"Well, it is nice to meet you Serena Marshall," the creature said, still with that hint of a smile on its face, "I am called Elita-1."


Jorge Figueroa skipped another rock along the surface of the lake. He was deep in thought, but not unaware of the surroundings. It was part of his training to always be aware. He'd been an Army Ranger since he'd gotten out of high school, and he'd never even thought of another occupation. However, circumstances and one mean robotic sonovabitch had made it necessary.

Fig's recollection of the hours after the battle with Scorponok in the village were hazy and nearly nonexistent. He remembered Will telling him to hold on, and Bobby radioing frantically for a medic. According to the doctors, his heart had stopped on two occasions on the way to the nearest army facility that could deal with his wounds and his heart had stopped again when Lennox and Epps had left him in Saudi Arabia. They'd actually thought he was dead all through the hellish hours they'd spent fighting the Decepticons at Mission City.

How overjoyed they'd been when they'd seen him being wheeled into his room at Walter Reed. How crushed when they learned that he'd never go on another mission with them. Scorponok's ammo had ripped through his left side; a portion of his left lung had been utterly destroyed and one kidney was now nonfunctional. The surgeons had been forced to staple his small intestine back together and - thought they'd never put it in these terms - jury rig his large intestine. Fig was damn lucky to be alive.

Not unlike his companion. Sitting next to the former Ranger was a silver Autobot by the name of Jazz. The Autobots' medical officer Ratchet had been able to find a way to revive Jazz using the last of the Allspark as a surrogate spark. It had actually been a huge gamble; Ratchet had estimated a seventy-five percent chance that instead of reviving Jazz he would create an entirely new entity from the slain Autobot's body. Nothing of the sort had ever been attempted, and it came as a joy to the Autobots that the procedure was a success.

However, like Fig, Jazz's fighting days were pretty much over. Peace reigned on Earth, at least as far as the Cybertronians were concerned, and even if a new threat were to materialize, Ratchet was adamant that Jazz not fight for at least a decade Earth time.

So here the two crippled soldiers were, sharing a quiet moment at Tranquility Lake while everyone else was busy being useful. It was actually the feeling of inadequacy and uselessness as well as an appreciation for reggaeton that had cemented their friendship.

"Anythin' from Will and Bobby?" Fig asked.

"Nothin'. Doc Hatchet says that they should be back soon though." Jazz answered in his usual tone. He was depressed a little, but as Optimus had once called him, he was the Irrepressible Jazz. He'd already decided that he while he couldn't fight, it wouldn't stop him from doing something else he loved. Jazz hoped to start up a DJ business, and he wanted Fig to be the actual DJ since Jazz couldn't do it all by himself for obvious reasons. He'd yet to convince the Latino though.

Fig skipped another stone. "Figures. I pray they get the bastard."

"You and me both." Jazz chirped. "I'd love to see the fragger hanging by his internal wiring."

"I wonder if Mama could figure out a way to cook 'em. Scorponok gumbo sounds intriguing."

"Sounds just as good as your mama's alligator et touffe."

"Nobody appreciates my Mama's food."

"Maybe if yo Mama actually cooked food nobody'd have a problem wi'it."

Fig broke out in rapid Spanish but Jazz ignored him. Instead the silver Autobot carefully transformed. "Come on Fig. Let's get back to base. Doc Hatchet's probably wondering where we are."

Fig hoped in and laughed. "Maybe I ought to fight the gov'ment to let me tell my Mama about y'all like Will did to let his wife get in on it."

Jazz's deep bass filled the cab. "I still feel sorry for the lil femme. Gettin' Ironhide for a guardian? Must've scared her shitless."

"Well," Fig began, "It could've been worse."

"How?"

"She could've got Ratch."

Both mech and man burst out laughing.


Optimus Prime was stargazing again. Not a lot of the humans that knew him probably would have thought that the noble leader would like to spend his time looking to the stars, but one did. She was currently seated on his foot.

Mikaela Banes had matured in the three years since Mission City. She was now armed with a Associates in Business and the government paychecks they gave her for being a liaison between the U.S. government and the Autobots. She was currently in the process of starting up her own custom auto business.

Optimus had kindly agreed to be her mascot and first customer in order to better camouflage him. His flashy paint job attracted just a bit too much attention since one semi enthusiast had taken pictures and posted them on his blog. He'd still keep his trademark flames, but Mikaela would say that she was the one who painted them and offer flames in any color and on any kind of vehicle. The idea was to allow Optimus to blend a little better when some of the more vain truckers came in to get some of those hot flames and to give him a place where he could park without being harassed. In effect Mikaela would also get her very own guardian since Bee was with Sam up at UCLA.

"They're pretty tonight." Mikaela said.

"Yes. The atmosphere is particularly clear here." Optimus replied.

Mikaela made a sound of annoyance. "Can take the robot out of the cliché but can't take the cliché out of the robot." she muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." she answered in her most innocent voice. She could feel Optimus' disapproving stare but she only smiled. She enjoyed her time with the big Autobot. He was a sort of father figure for her. "So, any answers from your comrades?" Mikaela wasn't stupid. She knew that the reason Optimus really came out here was to see if any of his Autobots had answered his call. He came every night, and lately she had started coming with him. She found it relaxing after a long day of work to come out here and lounge on his foot, watching the stars twinkle. Often she would be lulled to sleep by the warmth of his metal and would find herself laying in his cab hours later as he rolled toward home.

"No. Nothing." he whispered, the sound barely meeting Mikaela's ears.

The wistfulness in his tone struck and chord and pulled at her heartstrings. "Is there someone . . . Someone you're waiting for in particular?" she asked.

Optimus' blue optics turned from the sky to her. "Yes."

"A good friend or something?"

"Or something."

"I didn't know you guys could fall in love."

Optimus chuckled. "Sometimes you amuse me to no end. Mikaela, we are sentient beings. We feel, we think, we do. We feel emotional pain as well as physical, and we feel all the things you do. Love, hate, sadness, joy, despair, tiredness, hope . . . Everything you do."

Mikaela digested that. "You're right. I never really thought about it like that. It's just that you guys are well . . . Robots. Its hard to think of you as being like humans."

"I can understand. It was hard for me at first to think of you as being like us."

"It was?!"

"Yes. You all seemed like sparklings at first. Protoforms that needed to be led around and supervised. But it didn't take long for me to realize that like us, there is more to you than meets the eye."

Mikaela leaned back and smiled at the sky. She was unaccountably moved by that. "Optimus?"

"Yes Mikaela?"

"I know this'll sound . . . Strange . . . But do you guys have girls?"

Optimus' laughter was like low thunder. "Yes, but we refer to them as femmes. And yes, the one I love is a femme."

She nodded. "What's her name?"

"Loosely translated between our language and yours, Elita-1."

Mikaela frowned. "So that's how you got your names? Translation?"

"In a way. We took what our names meant approximately and found words that were close or gave the same idea. In Cybertronian my name meant 'First and Best', so I chose the Latin that meant that. Bumblebee's name was something to the line of 'Happiness in accomplishments', so he chose Bumblebee because he thought it fit. Elita's name means 'Elite femme', so she'd most likely choose Elita-1."

"What's the one for?"

"It's to denote that she is the chosen mate of the Prime." he answered.

Mikaela pursed her lips and nodded. "Interesting. So you're waiting for her?"

"Yes. And I'll wait as long as I have to."

Mikaela smiled. "See, if you were a human, I'd have to grab you quick. Sam's a sweetheart, but he's not that much of a sweetheart."

"I'm flattered."

"You better be."


The motorcycle was alone on the highway. It roared down the road, intent upon whatever destination it had in mind. There was not a care for anyone else on the quiet Midwestern prairie.

Then, it was not alone. Out of seemingly nowhere, a black and white cop car revved its engine and let its sirens begin to wail. The motorcycle sped up, but the cop car was one step ahead of it. There was a screech of metal on metal and the motorcycle rolled over and began to shift and rock.

The machine rose in the night, but it wasn't alone in the shift. The cop car became a menacing giant as well. No words were heard as they battled only screeches and blasts. The smaller motorcycle tried to break away once, but the cop car prevented it.

The entire incident was over in a matter of minutes. The motorcycle lay on the ground unmoving and cop car none too gently picked it up. For the first time, the cop car robot spoke. His voice was a dragon's growl as he carried the motorcycle like an unconscious maiden. "I've got you now Arcee."